Rise: How a House Built a Family

Rise: How a House Built a Family by Cara Brookins                  Audio Book:  9 hours,  54 Minutes    Hardback Book:  320 pages           

Cara Brookins grew up in Wisconsin with parents who held can-do attitudes, no matter what the project.    She learned how to use tools,  plant gardens,  can fruit and vegetables, and to never think she couldn’t do something if she wanted to.   She instilled those teachings into her four children.   After living through two extremely abusive relationships which she discusses in length in the book, she and her children decide to start a new life in a new house and to build that house themselves.  Well, it was more Cara’s idea, but, the kids worked their patooties off helping her to get the house built.    They were their own little habitat for humanity workers spending as much as 19 hours a day working to get their home completed.    She goes into how she acquired the land and how she paid for the materials to keep things on the doable end of the financial realm.   They burned up the internet watching how-to videos learning the ends and outs of carpentry, and what is needed for the electrical and plumbing aspects to get done to pass inspection in order to receive the right to occupy their new digs.    It is beyond amazing what they were able to accomplish and you will picture every inch of the way it took them to accomplish this mean feat even while enduring the terror of looking over their shoulders to see which demon might pop up out of the bushes.   How they endured it all is described in great detail and she lets the reader into the world of enduring the criminally psychotic mentally ill that often puts family member lives at stake.    It is quite a read.    Not for the squimish as some of the things the last schizophrenic husband does will definetly grab you.   I didn’t always like Cara for the decisions she made and for many of the situations she put her kids in without thinking about the fact the boogey man could be lurking outside the door (which he often was)  while the kids were home alone.   I get it sometimes she needed to get away from everything kids included but in my opinion she should have either had the guy committed or taken a harder line againt him regardless what his mother or sister said.    The guy’s family members did not keep a good eye on him and he was dangerously mentally impaired.   I don’t want to give too much away, but, I did like the book if not all the actions.